After a few cockstrong weeks of advertising sales, the president of the company caught wind of our numbers. He had a meeting in Philly, so he decided to rent a car and swing by Bethlehem for a little visit to see what we were up to. I alerted my team via text that he was going to be there for the evening meeting:

(304): Haha yeah I know right? You heard from Kyle? I texted him like half an hour ago.

(610): No

Mark and I convened at our evening meeting place around 5:30 to find Kyle waiting awkwardly with the president. The president was occupying our single broken chair and staring up at Kyle, who was sweating. Upon seeing us, the president jumped up.

So I’m not too sure about proper etiquette, and don’t really give two shits about it. But here’s a quick lesson on what not to do.

We sat down to eat dinner at the Bethlehem Brewworks, famous for their micro-brewed beer. I had just turned 21, so when the waitress asked what I wanted to drink, I obviously asked for the most alcoholic beer available. My teammates followed suit. Then the president asked for a Coke. Fuck. One 13% alcohol beer per teammate later, it went from a nice dinner with the president to a night on the town with the boys. Mark, Kyle, and I painfully faked sobriety while “the big P” as we were now referring to him via text shared stories about visits he had with other teams.

This past summer I worked as an advertising sales representative for a company that produces the college directories for like 300 campuses across the nation. Right after school ended, me and 750 other reps from across the nation were flown down to Chapel Hill, North Carolina for a Hitler-youth-rally-ish training week. Every day we were forced to dress up and sit in a classroom for an eight hour long brainwashing session. Then each night we would meet with our region for four hours. Shit balls. Granted, I make it sound worse than it was. I think there was a pool nearby.

Though I tried to fight it, I eventually gave into the brainwashing. Ten days, three livestock sacrifices, one drunken flight, and three phone calls from my manager later, I was ready to sell some advertising. After a fuckload (week) of failure, the brainwashing wore off and I realized how goddamned hard it was to get people to buy from you. So I did what I always do in times of extreme failure: I took off my shirt, got as drunk as possible off two Natural Lights, and started reading a book on how to not suck at what I’m doing.

The book I started reading was called How to Master the Art of Selling by Tom Hopkins. Holy shit it’s amazing. Even as I neared blackout and began urinating on my futon, I knew that this book was going to change my life. It is filled with awesome and hilarious ways of persuading people to do what you want them to do. As soon as I started using his techniques, I started selling ass-tons of advertising and getting what I want in almost all areas of my life. Including poon.

I was explaining this once to a small group of tourists I had lured into my home. One fellow spoke up.

Inept dunce: “But Robbie, I’m not in sales.”

I whipped out my dick and slapped the inept dunce in the face.

Robbie: “Silence!”

ID: “Oh… OK. It’s getting late… can we…um…”

I glanced up at him, penis still in hand.

ID: “Nevermind.”

Learning the art of persuasion is important to getting what you want all the time without being a complete douche. It’s the closest you can ever get to becoming a Jedi.

Note: This has been backdated to be the first post. It actually happened like a year and a half later. That being said, it’ll give you a good feel for what this blog is about.

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Dave: “They definitely think we’re rapists.”

Me: “You think?”

Dave: “Yeah, you need to stop asking where they live as a pick-up line.”

Me: “Ah, meant to ask where they’re from. Whatever man, you need to back me up on that shit.”

Dave: “I’m not going to back up a rapist.”

Me: “Fine, I got an idea. I’m leading on the next one. Let’s try those blondes in the corner.”

During my senior year of college I was a notoriously controversial columnist in our school’s paper. The column was mostly about picking up girls, but also hit on masturbation, job hunting, and farting. Needless to say, the bar was pretty much my number one source for material.

Dave and I wandered across the bar to practice another round of hitting on girls. I squeezed in next to a tall one on the end, the one most separated from the pack.

Me: “Hi, quick question. Why did the Jew go to the bar?”

Intrigued, the girl turned towards me.

Girl: “Why?”

Me: “I don’t know, but he won’t leave me alone.” I pointed at Dave who was standing behind me.

Dave: “Dude, you know I’m Catholic.”

Girl: “You’re Catholic? So am I!”

Me: “Shit.”

It was quickly becoming one of the strangest pick-up conversations I’d ever experienced. Regardless, we ended up singing hymns, reciting prayers, and reminiscing about our sacrament experiences with the blonde and her friend for about twenty minutes before they figured out who I was.

Dave: “You know Robbie in a Column in the paper? This is Robbie.”

Me: “Thanks for that Dave.”

Girl 1: “Oh fuck. You’re not going to write about this are you?”

Me: “I mean, I might. But it’s OK. I don’t use real names. I’ll refer to you as Girl 1 and Girl 2.”

Girl 1: “Wow, you really are a misogynist prick.”

The girls looked at me in disgust for a moment before her friend chimed in.